Goodreads Summary:All the creatures of the night gather in "the Hollows" of Cincinnati, to hide, to prowl, to party ... and to feed.
Vampires rule the darkness in a predator-eat-predator world rife with dangers beyond imagining -- and it's Rachel Morgan's job to keep that world civilized.
A bounty hunter and witch with serious sex appeal and an attitude, she'll bring 'em back alive, dead ... or undead.
-MY THOUGHTS-
Mistrust of people? Checked. Fiery temper? Checked. Incredibly talented? Checked? Badass? Checked? Outspoken? Checked? Hot in that tough girl kind of way? Checked.
Problem is, unlike Kate, Miss Rachel was so damn annoying from the first page to the last one.
If awards were being given out for worst decision maker in the Urban Fantasy heroine category, Rachel would have won hand down. For real, that girl was making bad decision after bad decision as if they were gifts for Christmas she was freely offering (to the reader).
So the red-head (yeah because she’s a red-head, she also has freckles but she hide them thanks to a charm) is a witch, she was a runner for the IS, a sort of magical police mostly composed of non-human tasked to catch criminals. Her boss, Denon hated her, he wasn’t giving her any good investigation and so she decided to quit. But guess what catch 21 is? If you quit the IS, you’re immediately on top of their dead list. Hell yeah.
Consequently, Rachel became one the IS priority target. It’s not as if she hadn’t been warned. Her vampire friend Ivy hammered this nasty fact non-stop into her head, but Rachel wasn’t having it. She did it her way and it backfired.
This scenario happened constantly in the book. Ivy or Jenks (Rachel’s pixie friend/partner) would try to bring some sense into her but she wouldn’t listen and in the end she would make a blunder. And when I say constantly, I truly mean it. Rach simply never learn from her mistakes and it pissed me off. It’s not that Rachel is ditzy or not knowledgeable, she just doesn’t want to listen and there’s nothing more outputting than ridiculously extreme stubbornness.
Her friends always had to save her, however most often than not, she was distrustful of them. There’s a reason for that, but I didn’t find it valid enough. I really didn’t like she deserved their friendship and their loyalty.
While I liked Ivy, Jenks and even Trent (even though he’s evil), Rachel I couldn’t stomach. She was irritating, stubborn and kind of selfish. And I really don’t get her relation with Ivy.
Ivy’s a vampire, she isn’t a bad girl, but being a vampire she’s predatory by nature and lust for blood, in this case, she lust for Rachel’s blood. Ivy love Rachel (in a way that may or may not be romantic) and would do anything to protect her. As a matter of fact, she was one of the main reasons her best friend is still alive. However, the red-head is scared of her and at the same time attracted to her,*sigh*. That’s one hell of a weird relation. And all I want to tell both of them (well actually, mostly Rachel) is “Fix it, Geesus!”
To be honest, I’ve never quite gotten around why the IS kills his former staff when they leave. One obscure reason was because they don’t want people to talk about what they learned with them. And an even obscurer one and only applying to Rachel was that as she left, so did her best friend and IS’ best runner Ivy. Denon was seriously pissed about that, so he put a big, fat price on her head.
When I think of Dead Witch Walking from the Hollow series by Kim Harrison, I think of what could have been. Dead Witch Walking had interesting secondary characters, an intriguing world and some fab magic, however it was missing two important things: a coherent plot and a main character you don’t feel like throwing out of the window because she’s so damn annoying. Oh and there were way too many info dump.
I disliked this book, but I’ll still try to read the second book in the series, because the world and secondary characters were intriguing and I wonder if the story gets better.
Great review. If you really, really can, try sticking it out until like the sixth book (my personal favorite is the 4th book). Only if you can, though! I say this because, as a long time reader, the series gets a little sidetracked with the overemphasis on Rachel and romance from the 7th book forward. Other than that, it's a pretty solid series. Sidenote: I don't think many people read them for Rachel either; personally, I was there for Ivy and Jenks. The coolest of the bunch!
ReplyDeleteThank You! Lol, I'm going to try to read the next book in the series. If only Ivy or Jenks could have been the main characters instead of Rachel *sighs*.
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